"Lady" Lydia's teacups...

[FairyPrincessK]

So, I have a chapter due at the end of this month and I'm moving the next day so I probably shouldn't be reading FJ, but can we please discuss "Lady" Lydia's latest? She is visiting her mother in Australia (apparently to put some sort of affairs in order, although I have either missed the exact situation or she hasn't made it clear on her blog). Of course, never one to be caught lacking, Lydia has taken tea a number of times. She has ranted about the lack of double cream in the U.S., baked shortbread in a toaster oven and bought lots of flowery fabric, all fairly typical for the dead lady....

Then she started making candles out of fabric, batting and led tealights. Then she made some tea cups out of fabric. She hopes no one will try to use them. She's also managed a full set of curtains, a valance, a window ledge ruffle and a table cloth out of binder clips, clothes pins, a bit of hand sewing and using selvege as a hem. Oh, and she sewed a checkerboard then turned it into a pillow after she lost. :think:

Also notable? The lack of glitter.

Me thinks the lady is bored. :cray-cray:

For those not familiar see homeliving.blogspot.com

[miffy]

:lol: :lol: :lol: The 'lady' is staying in a caravan park in FRANGA! It has some really nice houses next to the beach, but the rest of it is dodgy. About 5 years ago my friend & I caught the train there to go out of some friends & the were syringes in the train station toilets.

The fabric she is talking about is not lawn, which is a semi-sheer thin cotton. Its a really poor quality polyester, Spotlight have a huge range of it & its just horrible to sew with. I wouldn't make a cushion cover out of it!

I wonder if she is going to meet up with any of her friends from when she studied arts at Burnie Tech(more like training for the steno pool).

[formergothardite]

Trust me Lady Lydia, nobody is going to think those are real tea cups. Nobody.

[Rowan]

Oh for Pete's sake, that stuff is hideous. Shall we take bets on how quickly her mother strips it all out of her "caravan" after LL leaves? :pink-shock:

[Koala]

I wonder if she has any idea how shallow and empty her life sounds...

[debrand]

I want double cream. What is it exactly? Is it sweet?

I hope that she asked her mother before she decorated her home.

[DefraudedbyGothard]

They sell double cream at at least two of my area grocery stores. I don't know what the big deal is.

[formergothardite]

I want double cream. What is it exactly? Is it sweet?

I hope that she asked her mother before she decorated her home.

I have never heard of double cream either. Is it a liquid you pour in your tea like regular cream?

Her friends probably forced her to go out and do stuff because they were concerned for her mental health when they saw the fake teacups and no sew curtains.

[DefraudedbyGothard]

Double cream is a heavy cream with more fat content. It is not as ultra pasturized (heat treated) as our US whipping cream/heavy cream. I think it has a richer taste.

[GenerationCedarchip]

Oh my word. It's the kind of thing I want to snark on, but then it seems rude to make fun of someone who has simply got to be out of her everlasting mind. Fake cups made of cloth?! :pink-shock:

FYI - she posted a couple months ago that her father had died, so I suspect those are the affairs she's settling up.

[urban explorer]

I think her friends should get together and buy that poor women an xbox or playstation or something she's going a bit loopy.

[anniebgood]

LL's mother is in the process of being moved to a elderly home. :roll:

She's staying in the caravan, lugging water from the common tap for dishes etc in the caravan. She's got several brothers and sisters in the area and and tons of cousins who live either in the caravan court or in the near area.

She's homesick, too. :violin:

[lipstickgoalie]

Don't get me wrong, I love me some fabric and I love to sew. The thing I can't get past is the fact that the Lady is just so BAD at it. I see what she was going for but it is looks like a beginner 4H project gone wrong. So horribly, horribly wrong.

[yewchapel]

I always feel really sorry for Lydia for some reason. Like, her life is just so empty that making fabric 'teacups' is super exciting.

[browngrl]

One of my mother's favourite sayings is "an empty mind is a devil's workshop". When I was a child if I was ever complaining of being bored or randomly doing stupid stuff because I was bored she was find all sorts of chores to occupy my time. That is what Lydia needs. She needs some actual tasks that need doing or ....a job so that she doesn't flit about making crappy crafts or having yet another tea party (I'm just glad it is not foggy in Australia) or making inane commentary.

Examples of her bon mots (my commentary in blue): "We discussed how Christ already liberated women in several ways, and how, by following Christ, women are free to be what they were created for." - sure, Christ liberated women - just as long as they do exactly what the KJV of the Bible (or Dougie Phillips et al) tell them to.

"suitcases are large enough these days, that I wonder why some enterprising person could not manage to make a suitcase closet like the one I have roughly illustrated" when I travel my goal is to pack as efficiently as possible and to fit everything into a carry on - I would never consider a suitcase closet.

"I could not get it to balance on the stick facing forward so I had to put it sideways, which makes it a different sort of bird, Mother had a collection of brass cats that sit on the sill.

The tablecloth has a wide white muslin ruffle" this is almost Taryn-esque

The only thing LL and I seem to agree on is double cream. I have been known (when all self control has been shed) to eat the stuff with a spoon (although in a court of law I would deny such nutty behaviour)

[GolightlyGrrl]

Trust me Lady Lydia, nobody is going to think those are real tea cups. Nobody.

I love crafting, and I'll be the first to admit my stuff isn't perfect, but her stuff looks so juvenile. Plus, I like my crafting to be functional (soap, jewelry, etc.) I can't see the value in fake fabric teacups. Why not make an actual tea cup that one can use?

[Jinger Jar]

Who in their right mind would want to schlep* a suitcase closet through airports in 2013?

_________________

*A little shout out to our No Yiddish for You! cultural appropriation readers. Hiya! :wink-penguin:

[formergothardite]

That window ruffle is just so bad. And she really drug around fabric, two tea cups, tea, and cookies when she went walking in hopes she would find a stump to turn into a table. That is not normal behavior. I can see her now with her god awful outfits and crazy "hats" standing out in a field next to a stump setting up tea. I really do think she has completely lost it.

[FairyPrincessK]

Thank you, all. I'm so glad I'm not alone in this. I do agree on double cream. It is one of the best bits of moving to the UK.

I agree that her biggest problem is that she needs something to do. I frequently get the impression that she is so attached to staying at home and not engaging in unladylike behaviour that there isn't much left for her to occupy her time (or brain!) with.

I'm so glad someone with inside knowledge knows about this caravan park! Reading between the lines, her comments about the neighbours made me wonder as I always got the impression LL was a prime curtain twitcher.

[miffy]

That window ruffle is just so bad. And she really drug around fabric, two tea cups, tea, and cookies when she went walking in hopes she would find a stump to turn into a table. That is not normal behavior. I can see her now with her god awful outfits and crazy "hats" standing out in a field next to a stump setting up tea. I really do think she has completely lost it.

Its the kind of thing that little kids do, with a cat in a dress & a selection of dolls.

[FairyPrincessK]

Apparently she is doing up a room...soon to be revealed. I'm not a betting woman, but if I was, my money would be on a pink polar fleece bed cozy I mean canopy and a ruffled border around the top of the room, complete with "no sew" curtains and a polar fleece dust ruffle.

I can't wait. :popcorn2:

[danvillebelle]

I read Lydia on and off for years. At one point I actually printed off some of her stuff and had it in a binder. :shock:

I used to think I was going to be a homemaker a la Lydia for life. Honestly, I'm GRATEFUL I had a nervous breakdown, got diagnosed and got meds and therapy. Otherwise I could have ended up making fabric teacups and posting them on a blog. :cray-cray:

[FairyPrincessK]

That was close danvillebelle!

To be honest, I don't think Lady Lydia is actually losing her faculties because of an actual health problem. I think this is just the logical result of the lifestyle she advocates. After years of refusing to work outside the home, turning down volunteer work in case it over burdened her, streamlining her errands to leave the house as little as possible, and limiting her social and intellectual interactions to monotonous conversations about the same thing over and over again, she is starting to lose it from sheer boredom and lack of stimulation. If she were a resident of her beloved Victoiran era, her husband would probably be calling in specialists to help with her "hysteria". That sewing machine wouldn't last long--wouldn't want anything that stimulating around a lady!

[Cerdwin]

She is on a one woman mission to fill her Mother's caravan with crap. The poor woman is going to have to have a garage sale when 'Lady' Lydia leaves.

[Dinorah]

Am I terrible for thinking the cookie teacups are actually cute, though they seem like the kind of thing you'd make with a child? Oh well, it turns out that the one thing I find cute wasn't actually made by LL.